.40 S&W Load

Hey guys,

I have been loading .40 for a few months (a few thousand in a few months)...I bought 1000 bullets online, the description said 180 gr. TCFN BUT what I got was 175 gr SWC.

You can barely tell a difference as far as height goes, there is a very slight difference if you hit it with the calipers. I can't find a load for 175 gr. but it seems like my load for 180 gr. lead bullets (great in my gun) would work for a VERY slightly lighter bullet at the same OAL....notice I did say SEEMS. I'm thinking maybe I need to compensate OAL for the difference between the two different size bullets so the space in the case stays the same???

I am at nowhere near max load on my 180 grains, I'm going to start "cooking" Saturday and was curious to see if you guys had any suggestions/warnings about my semi-educated supposition.

Thanks

Hi Blaster,

I played the USPSA / IPSC game with a variety of .40 sw cal pistols for four years. I would have loved to continue but the recoil was getting to my tendonitous. During that time, I loaded / fired over 40,000 .40 cal rounds.
All of my rounds, 155gr, 180gr and 200gr, were sized to fit the magazine with mebby 0.05 clearance. In my experance pistol powder burns so fast that the empty space in the case means little or nothing. I tried many powders including Bullseye (fast burning) all the way to WSF (slower burning). I would work up each load, one grain at a time, until I reached 1000 fps or more.

The things to watch out for, once again in my experience, are squib loads (no powder) and the "fat tire" that shows up on the .40 cal case just above the rim. I got mebby 7 loadings per case before the fat tire "retired" each case.

It's hard to go wrong when loading the .40 sw cartridge, so many differant loads work very well. So enjoy yourself, good cooking, and may all your loads turn out as well as mine.

AL

Thanks cynical, I have heard many others say that it's hard to go wrong with a .40...I'm not loading to try to hit a specific velocity yet, just trying to make some good ammo that has similar recoil and feel compared to factory defensive ammo. Haven't gotten into USPSA yet, but the Production class looks fun (and all I can afford).

I'm a little nervous about cartridge length as I had some.380's that were a little scary to shoot (light loads) because I didn't seat quite deep enough (and my Lee Auto Disk didn't like 3.7 gr. of Unique), I understand there's a difference in case volume...just don't want to repeat the problems I had with those little suckers as I shoot 100-150 rounds of .40 per range trip.

I've also noticed those stupid little fat tires, the resizing die gets most of those out and I'm was fortunate enough to have bought a weapon with a fully supported chamber (I don't even reload brass if it looks like it came from a Glock) so it's not getting too bad yet but after about five loadings I'm starting to want to toss some of my older brass.

Thanks for the input, I'll check back again before I start throwing em together